For better or for worse, it’s around this time of year that I start craving a change of scenery—literally. For those of you who don’t know, “fall” in Texas isn’t a whole lot different from summer. The trees stay green, the weather stays hot, and—despite my desperate attempts to wear my beloved jeans—we are all still being forced to stick with shorts.

Come early November, however, and things finally start to look a little more like the autumn you see in picture books. The trees turn orange-brown and start to lose their leaves, pumpkins and squash pop up everywhere, and I start getting a hankering for cozy comfort foods like soup, hot chocolate, pies, and casseroles.

As for the weather, at this point it’s still a toss-up. Texas weather is weird in general, not just around autumn. It could be sizzling one day and down to too-cold-for-swimming the next. You never know what you’re gonna get. (Unless it’s the middle of August. Then you know. xD) So I’ll still be wearing my shorts, but I’ll keep jeans and sweaters close at hand, just in case. And who knows, maybe I’ll wear them even if it is 85°, because maybe it’ll be that sort of day. In Texas, you have to do such things every once in a while, lol.

Of course, it isn’t November just yet, and I’m trying not to wish it here too quickly. We’ve dragged out the old orange Rubbermaids and decked the house with our much-loved fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving decorations, replacing blue and white pillows with gold and green and scattering tiny ceramic jack-o-lanterns every which way. I’m especially into decorating this year because of the awesome new John Derian collection that was released at Target recently. I love John Derian’s stuff, and I’m so excited to have some of his prints in our own home. ❤ (My favorite piece is the skull and crossbones platter!)

We’re not doing trick-or-treating this year, my brother and I both being a bit too old to get away with it anymore. That makes me a little sad, but I guess I’ve got my own future kids’ trick-or-treating escapades to look forward to. 😉 We’re still having some Halloween fun, however! It’s a tradition of ours to make “mummy dogs” (with hot dogs and tubes of crescent dough) and roast pumpkin seeds for dinner on Halloween night, and we’ll buy some candy to hand out to any trick-or-treaters who come to our door as well. Plus, my mom and dad’s birthdays both fall around Halloween, so some birthday activities are always incorporated into the fun. We might even take a couple-day trip to Austin, something we haven’t done in a long time! (If we do, I’ll post about it.)

And of course, there’s Thanksgiving in a month to look forward to. As usual, we’ve got a handful of relatives coming down to celebrate, which I’m glad about—it’s always enjoyable to have some extra family around during the holidays. But, more on Thanksgiving a little later. As I said before, I don’t want to jump too far ahead (even if all I can think about right now is pumpkin pie). :9

What’s your favorite thing about the fall season? Are you looking forward to Halloween and/or Thanksgiving?

Níl deireadh leis anseo,

Havalah Ruth Peirce